{"id":30471,"date":"2013-12-18T21:00:02","date_gmt":"2013-12-19T03:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=30471"},"modified":"2013-12-18T17:24:30","modified_gmt":"2013-12-18T23:24:30","slug":"thudos-brasileiros","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=30471","title":{"rendered":"Brazilian Thunderbolts"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a time when I could say every kid knew who fought who in World War II; Germany, Japan and Italy on one side, the US, UK, USSR and France on the other.<\/p>\n

I’m not sure a lot of people today could get the answer right.<\/p>\n

But even people who know the larger story of World War 2 miss that it was called a “World” war for a reason, and not just because it was fought all over the world. \u00a0 It involved a record total of nations<\/a>; 11 fought with the Axis (from Germany and Japan down to Croatia); there were 46 nations on the Allied side.<\/p>\n

And for most of the nations, the war never extended beyond their own borders. \u00a0They got into the war for a variety of reasons – political alliances (the entire British Commonwealth), being in the wrong place at the wrong time (Poland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the rest of Europe), or wanting to be recognized in the big leagues (most of South America).<\/p>\n

It was probably the latter that brought Brazil into the war on the side of the Allies in 1942. \u00a0In exchange for providing air bases on the South Atlantic to patrol against U-boats, the US gave some key preferences to Brazilian iron exports. \u00a0This cooperation gradually moved from trade and bases to full military cooperation, and eventually joining in the war effort. \u00a0Brazil’s navy – heavily equipped and trained by the US – joined in the Battle of the Atlantic, escorting convoys about the Caribbean and South Atlantic.<\/p>\n

And the Brazilian Army assembled an infantry division (copied from the US Army’s organization) and sent it to Italy, where it fought in that nearly-forgotten campaign.<\/p>\n

And seventy years ago today, it \u00a0commissioned its first fighter squadron for overseas service<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The squadron – in Portuguese, the “First Fighter Group”, or 1\u00ba Grupo de Avia\u00e7\u00e3o de Ca\u00e7a<\/em> – spent its first few months defending the Panama Canal Zone, before transitioning to the US to learn to fly the legendary P-47 Thunderbolt.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"

An early-model P-47D, in Brazilian colors. The plane – called the “Jug” for its stubby, capacious fuselage design – was famous for its ruggedness and ability to take damage. It excelled as a ground-attack plane in Italy and, especially, in the Allied campaign in western Europe.<\/p><\/div>\n

They were soon in action in Italy – not terribly far from the “Tuskeegee Airmen”, as luck would have it – and while neither they nor their counterparts in the Brazilian Army contingent were in the thick of the war in Italy, they rang up an impressive record.<\/p>\n

\"\"

A Brazilian “Jug” on the ground in Italy.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Brazilians’ commanders at the Allied XXII Air Force – responsible for all ground-attack aviation in Italy – accounted for the Brazilians’ accomplishments in their six months in front-line service, and reckoned that the Brazilians, who were about 5% of the planes and flew 5% of the missions, destroyed…:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • 85% of the ammunition blown up by the XXII’d ATAF<\/li>\n
  • Torched 36% of the fuel destroyed<\/li>\n
  • Toppled 28% of the bridges destroyed, and 19% of those damaged<\/li>\n
  • knocked out 15% of the motor vehicles and 10% of horse-drawn vehicles destroyed in those six months.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    And Brazil wasn’t the only country to send troops to Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    More on that next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    There was a time when I could say every kid knew who fought who in World War II; Germany, Japan and Italy on one side, the US, UK, USSR and France on the other. I’m not sure a lot of people today could get the answer right. But even people who know the larger story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ww2-fact-and-myth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30471"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30473,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30471\/revisions\/30473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}